By Staff
Complacent Americans should be concerned by evidence cropping up that in a country as prosperous, free and secure as the United States, its civic infrastructure is crumbling.
Increased political polarization makes compromise on big national security issues such as immigration or the unity seen in crisis five years ago after Sept. 11 difficult if not impossible.
The electorate is frustrated because it wants results, not ideology.
If politicians don't correct their short-sighted courses, the people will wrest control of the pendulum and swing it back themselves.
People's trust in others has diminished, even as voting increases.
That suggests that citizens are resorting to the ballot box more to selfishly guard their personal interests than out of any sense of shared responsibility that we're all in this together.
Surveys find that 96 percent of Americans believe the nation is deeply divided along economic lines as well as gridlocked red and blue states.
The National Conference on Citizenship, a federally-chartered non-profit founded in 1946 to bolster civics, is releasing its first "Civic Health Index."
It's not a pretty picture, although there are a couple of bright spots.
Forty measures, such as trust of major institutions and people's connections to their communities, show steep declines over the past three decades.
One shred of hope is that more citizens – especially younger ones – vote than when disco ruled the dance floors.
Another is that although volunteering flattened out after spiking after 9/11, it's still rising in the 16 to 24 age bracket.
There are no easy answers to this dilemma and we don't pretend to have them, but we can point out one way fallout may be felt.
Consider the frustrated constituent of a moderate GOP lawmaker who told a national publication he will be voting Democratic Nov. 7.
"If we don't get some meaningful congressional oversight of the Bush administration, this country may be gone forever," he said.
Since reasonable Republicans hold no sway with the Bush administration, the GOP middle feels forced to vote Democratic to wrest control of one of the houses of Congress in hopes of restoring some semblance of political balance.
It's a process not unlike the recasting of the Democratic Party in the South, which left our modern Civil War pitting liberal northeastern states versus southern conservatives.
Ironically, our definition of political balance now would be one party occupying the White House while the other holds at least one house of Congress.
A Republican moderate like Christopher Shays of Connecticut could be on the chopping block for Bush's unpopular policies because of his Iraq war support.
Even though during 19 years in office Shays has distinguished himself as a centrist by offering bipartisan legislation on such thorny issues as campaign finance reform and immigration and even voting against Bill Clinton's impeachment, he's in trouble in the toxic partisan climate for the Nov. 7 general election.
Whether you love or loathe Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., can you imagine the polarizing effect she could have on the 2008 presidential race?
Republican attacks on her would make the 2004 swift boating of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., look tame by comparison.
What the nation doesn't need half a decade after 9/11 is another divisive presidential campaign in which the money men remove real issues off the table in favor of a few which test well with focus groups.
If they continue to cynically manipulate the American people, they're headed the way of the Whigs because that card has been played one too many times.
What America does need is a real uniter-not-a-divider to repair our reputation abroad, to repudiate polarizing tactics and to recapture the feeling after the terrorist attacks that at the end of the day, Republicans and Democrats alike, above all are Americans – like we learned in civics class all those years ago.